Page 31 of Strangers in Time

F ATHER W AKEFIELD

W HAT DO YOU MEAN , ‘gone’? Is he… is he dead?” asked Molly.

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not know something like that?” Molly cried out.

Mrs. Pride pointed toward the front of the house. “I watched him one morning come down the stairs with his suitcase, put on his hat and coat, and pick up his umbrella, for it was raining like a monsoon. He turned to me and said, ‘Mrs. Pride, please take care of things while I’m away.’ Now, this surprised me because he hadn’t mentioned taking a trip. So I says, ‘And where might you be going, Mr. Wakefield? And when might you be back, sir?’ As the housekeeper I needed to know things like that, of course.”

“And what did he say?” asked Molly breathlessly.

“He said, ‘Mrs. Pride, if I had the answers to that I’m not sure I would tell you. But I don’t, so that becomes an unnecessary decision.’ That was what he said, word for word. I’ll never forget it till my dying day.”

“So you just let him walk out?” asked Molly incredulously.

“What was I to do, Molly? He’s the master. If he wanted to leave, what right did I have to stop him?”

“And when did all this occur?”

“Six months ago, almost to the day.”

“Six months! But what about the letter he left me on my bed?”

Mrs. Pride looked deeply troubled. “Please don’t be upset, Molly, but it was me that put that there the morning you came back.”

“But you said you hadn’t gotten my letter and thus didn’t know I was coming back.”

Mrs. Pride looked even more ashamed and kneaded her bony fists into her thighs. “It was true that we never got your letter, but I saw you from the upstairs window when you knocked. I knew it was you straightaway though you’d changed so much. I got the letter and put it on your bed before I answered the door and… pretended I didn’t recognize you.”

“But it was Father’s handwriting. He wrote that note, I’m sure of it!”

“Indeed he did pen that note. He handed it to me before he walked out that door. He said, ‘Just in case, Mrs. Pride. Odder things have happened, of course, but just in case, for dear Molly, upon her arrival back. Thank you.’ Then he tipped his hat, opened the door, and stepped out into the rain. I’ve never laid eyes on him since.”

“But as time passed, why didn’t you communicate with me?”

“I would never bother you with such a thing, Molly. And besides…”

“Besides what?” she said sharply.

“Your father made me promise not to tell you. He didn’t want to burden you with it. And I could not go against his wishes. He’s the—”

“—the master of the house, yes, I know. But at some point why didn’t you go to the authorities and tell them that he had disappeared?”

The woman looked shocked. “Molly, that would have been a betrayal to your father. He never said I could do such a thing. And there’s a war going on. Lots of people have disappeared without a by-your-leave. You may not have seen that where you were, but here in London it happens all the time.” She paused and seemed to gird herself. “But, with that said, after four months went by without a word from him I… I actually went down to the police station near here with the mind that I might say something about your father being gone.”

“And what happened?”

“There were literally hundreds of adverts up in that one station about missing people, and have you seen them and such.” She grew quiet and looked down. “And…”

“And what?”

Mrs. Pride looked up, her face now full of tears. “If I told them Mr. Wakefield was gone and the missus was in a sanatorium and you was in the country, well, what would they do with me? Would I lose my position? Would I have no roof over my head? Would I be chucked out on the street? There’re too many there as it is.”

She started to sob into her hands and Molly rose and perched next to her, patting her back and saying soothing things into her ear until the woman calmed.

Molly resumed her seat. “I suppose this explains why he never summoned me to come home.”

Mrs. Pride blew her nose into her handkerchief and gave Molly a pained expression. “With your mother the way she was and all, it would not have been a good situation for you.”

“Meaning Father wouldn’t have wanted me to see her like that?”

“Yes. And he sent the Coopers money each month for your care.”

“But the Coopers told me the money stopped coming recently. Regardless, they offered for me to continue staying with them, but I wanted to come home. It was time, you see.”

“I knew nothing about that. But after he walked out I had to keep up the house and all. He had left some funds, and I paid the bills from that.”

“But why didn’t he tell me what was going on? He could have written. I could have come back and helped with Mother. Father could have had me to talk to and think things through with. If I had been here, he might not…”

“He might not have gone away, you mean?”

“Yes!” said Molly.

“Well, I’m sure he did what he thought was best for you. But…”

“But what?”

She glanced up at Molly. “Your mother wasn’t the only Wakefield changed by what happened that night. Your father was too. He would come into the kitchen and start ranting that he was an Englishman, faithful to the Crown, paid his proper taxes, did what was expected of him, performed his duties selflessly, a true patriot. And yet this had been allowed to happen to his wife. It was like his belief in the whole of England had just been washed right from him. I don’t know, really, who was affected more by this terrible thing—your mother or your father. But Mr. Wakefield was a different man after that, root and branch. When the police would do nothing? When no doctor could be found in London to help your mother? When no one seemed to… care? It broke him, Molly. I don’t think he ever held his head up after that. It wasn’t just the rank unfairness of it all. It was, well, I think he blamed himself for what happened. It was like he had failed your mother. That all of this was his fault. And that is simply too big a burden for anyone to carry, in my opinion.”

“Poor Father,” said Molly miserably. “I feel terrible for thinking so unkindly of him.”

“Well, you weren’t to know, were you?” said Mrs. Pride firmly.

After a few seconds of silence Molly sat up, trying to look as composed as possible, even as her runaway nerves threatened to paralyze her.

“Mrs. Pride, can I continue to live here without my mother and father? Isn’t there some… I don’t know, law ? While I am nearly sixteen I still am considered underage, am I not?”

Mrs. Pride rubbed her hands along her apron; nervous fingers smoothed away errant wrinkles in the fabric. “I… I don’t know, Molly. I suppose you might be. Heard somewhere that you had to be twenty-one to be considered an adult. Yet I was married when I wasn’t much older than you, though my parents did have to consent. And your father may walk back in that door anytime,” she added stoutly.

“And he may not.”

Mrs. Pride went back to smoothing out wrinkles and said nothing.

“Do we at least receive regular information from Cornwall about my mother?”

“Your father had quite a number of letters and I believe he left them here.”

“Can I see them?” Molly said anxiously.

“I can fetch the first one he received,” said Mrs. Pride. “I know right where ’tis.”

“Do the letters say that she is getting better?”

“I… well, I’m not versed in medical terms. But I’m sure if you write to them, they’ll answer any questions you might have.”

“I will put questions to them, Mrs. Pride,” Molly said decisively.

“And I know all you want is for your mum and dad to be here. I dearly wish I could make it so,” she added in a quavering voice.

“Well, wanting something and having it are two very different things, Mrs. Pride. They often are in life. Now, the letter?”

Mrs. Pride rushed from the room but was back presently with it and handed the envelope over to Molly.

Molly rose and said, “I will read through this, get a better picture of her condition, think on things, and then we’ll go from there, shall we?”

“You… you sound ever so grown up, Molly,” said Mrs. Pride hesitantly.

“Do I have a choice otherwise?”

Before Mrs. Pride could answer, Molly retreated up the stairs, fled down the hall to her room, shut and locked the door behind her, collapsed on her bed, and pushed her face deeply into the pillows so that no one other than herself could hear the wails.